Legislature wins on Valley View ruling

GOSHEN — A judge handed the Orange County Legislature a two-pronged victory on Thursday in its battle with County Executive Ed Diana over the future of the county nursing home.

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By CHRIS MCKENNA

recordonline.com

By CHRIS MCKENNA

Posted Mar. 22, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By CHRIS MCKENNA
Posted Mar. 22, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

GOSHEN — A judge handed the Orange County Legislature a two-pronged victory on Thursday in its battle with County Executive Ed Diana over the future of the county nursing home.

In a 37-page decision, acting state Supreme Court Justice Robert Onofry ordered the Diana administration to honor changes lawmakers made to Diana's 2013 budget proposal to try funding the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation for a full year. Diana, who planned to subsidize the home for only a single month, had declared those amendments "null and void."

Onofry also ruled that Diana has no authority to close Valley View, the dire alternative he has proposed if lawmakers don't sell the 360-bed facility to a private operator. In doing so, the judge agreed with the Legislature's lawyers that only that branch of government can create or close departments under the county charter.

For Diana to do so on his own, Onofry said, "constitutes an impermissible violation of the doctrine of separation of powers."

The decision delighted two lawmakers who have most forcefully challenged Diana's gloomy financial forecasts about the nursing home and his push to privatize it.

"My God — balance of power, it's crucial to the governing of our county," said Roxanne Donnery, D-Highland Falls, a candidate for county executive. "We no longer can have a Legislature in lock step with a county executive, a county executive who behaves like a dictator."

Mike Anagnostakis, the Town of Newburgh Republican who crafted the initial Valley View budget amendments, called Onofry's ruling "a vindication of the truth, and an affirmation that one-man rule will not be tolerated in Orange County."

Onofry cast no judgment on Diana's warnings of grave financial peril for the county or administration claims that the Legislature's budget changes were unrealistic. While saying Diana had made his case "in significant detail and compelling fashion," Onofry declared that the court couldn't "intrude on the budgetary processes nor on the wisdom of what the Legislature chose to adopt."